Gas turbine manufacturer Mitsubishi Power Systems (MPS) needed to
improve its remote monitoring system by making it accessible over the
Web. They replaced their Microsoft system with a new one based on a
combination of Oracle and Sun technology.

The old system was based on a Windows NT platform that had flat files
only and no relational database. Other shortcomings were its limited
scalability, minimal searching functionality and inaccessibility
over the Web.

The Sun Fire 4800 servers run the Oracle 8i database. Clustering is
accomplished through a combination of SunTM Cluster 3.0 software, which
offers improved availability and scalability, and an Oracle Parallel
Server. Two servers provide off-site disaster recovery. Sun Services
provides service for the system under the SunSpectrum PlatinumSM
support plan.

The MPS project engineer, Brian Hollar stated, "Sun got off to the
right start by sending in a team who did a superb job of explaining
Sun's long term strategy, and what a strategy it is -- one processor
family, one operating environment, and binary compatibility up and down
the product line. Sun's scalability allows us to easily add power to
the system by adding memory and processors, even new CPUs with higher
clock speeds. Adding up those advantages, we could see that with Sun
our investment would be protected for the foreseeable future."

"The final and very important factor that influenced the decision to go
with Sun was the company's close relationship with Oracle," Hollar
added. "We did quite a bit of research that made it clear how closely
the two firms work together to satisfy the needs of their joint
customers."

Other goals of the new system included improving customer service by
connecting the system to the call center so employees could help
customers with up-to the-minute answers. The system also gathered data
and warehoused it for future use such as increasing uptime and
improving inventory management.

"Our new Sun-based remote monitoring system is an important competitive
differentiator for MPS," said Hollar. "We feel our system has a lot of
unique strengths and our customers seem to agree, given all the
interest it has generated."